A printing system may combine one or more colorants, such as a black colorant together with cyan, magenta and yellow colorants for printing different colors according to a subtractive color model, by distributing dots of the different colorants over a printing medium according to different densities. The dots are of a size small enough for the human eye to perceive the resulting pattern as a solid color. Lighter colors may be generated by printing a smaller density of colorant and darker colors may be generated by printing a greater density of colorant, such as a greater density of black colorant in combination with the desired proportions of the remaining colorants. The density of a given colorant may be defined as the number of depositions of colorant that are placed per unit area or pixel of a printing medium. The colorants may be in the form of a printing fluid, like e.g. ink, in which case a colorant deposition may correspond to a drop of printing fluid, or of a printing powder, like e.g. toners, in which case a colorant deposition may correspond to a powder particle.